A story in two minutes?

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CHICAGO, July 29 (Reuters)- Keenly awaited details on Elan and Wyeth’s new Alzheimer’s drug bapineuzumab show it raised the risk of a potentially serious side effect, especially in people with a genetic risk of the disease, the companies said on Tuesday.

I have thought long and hard about how Reuters released this story at 5:02 p.m. when the data itself were released at 5:00 p.m. This was a deeply complex clinical study, and the results have a myriad of implications.

Obviously, the story was scripted before the data release and published with an already established angle.

Steve O.

We did not do the story in two minutes, nor did we do it ahead without knowing the results.

On a complex story of this nature and importance, reporters are often given the information ahead of time under what is known as an embargo. That way, when the results are released publicly, we have an accurate story ready to go instantly.

In this case, our reporter was briefed starting the day before the release, and was able to work on it throughout the day leading up to the 5 p.m. embargo: GBU Editor